49ers running back Tyrion Davis-Price finished his rookie year on the unenviable Trey Sermon track. That’s the one where a third-round pick has a mostly underwhelming rookie year aided in part by an inconveniently-timed injury, never recovers and is cut before Week 1 of his second season.
That’s a dark road no running back should want to follow. Early returns on Davis-Price indicate he reversed course this offseason and now might find his way into a real offensive role.
Head coach Kyle Shanahan on Sunday told reporters in a press conference that Davis-Price has done everything to take the necessary steps forward in his second training camp.
“Yeah, I think he’s already done it,” Shanahan said. “I mean I think he’s taken a huge jump since last year. I mean just the conditioning that he put in in phase one and two, what he did these 40 days away. Just how good he was the first day we saw him in terms of his stamina, how he’s running, understanding the offense, and what we want out of him more. I thought he had a great OTAs and he’s come back and he’s even having a better training camp.”
Shanahan admitted the 49ers’ offense can be overwhelming for young running backs and attributed Davis-Price’s struggles to that, along with a Week 2 ankle injury that sidelined him for three weeks. He never got back in the rotation after that.
It’s impossible to know just how effective a running back is until the players put pads on, but the early returns on Davis-Price are about as positive as they can be. Offensive line coach and run game coordinator Chris Foerster on Friday also gushed about the second-year RB.
“Just the whole process, learning how to be a professional, learning how to come to work every day and be the consistency factor,” Foerster said about how Davis-Price has improved. “And he works very, very hard. He’s a very hard worker. Learning the offense. Sometimes you get behind the eight ball early, it doesn’t all ever make sense through the course of the year. And having a chance to sit back, relearn it in the offseason and then get back out there and apply it during the season can really be helpful. So, he’s really done a good job with that.
“Also, some of his running, open-field running and things like that, just making the adjustment from college to the NFL. He’s a good, hard, tough runner. But again, a little bit of the elusiveness, hitting the holes with more consistency, like with speed and trusting, knowing what he’s looking for, knowing what he sees and doing those things. It’s all coming together for him.”
Coming into camp it looked like Davis-Price might be on the outside looking in at. a roster spot. If he keeps playing well enough to earn this kind of praise from his coaches though, he’s going to cruise to a roster spot and potentially a real role in his second season.